this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Back in the early aughts, QNX was making their flagship QNX 6 RTOS available for free for x86 developers. They were already quite successful with QNX 4 in medical and other mission critical equipment, and QNX 6 came with some very interesting innovations.
It ran a microkernel that did almost nothing but scheduling and message passing. Drivers were all in user space. Their Photon X server had a micro kernel architecture as well, so you could shutdown parts of it (or device drivers, for that matter) and bring them back up through the command line. You could of course set up watchdogs and automate restarts of anything but the microkernel itself.
I had some fun with it with and old and failing 486.